I am an avid fisherman and, like many other fishermen today, enjoy fishing for the thrill of the catch more than as a utilitarian means of providing food. Many fishermen accordingly prefer to throw the fish back for environmental reasons.
A fish hooked by the mouth is ordinarily not mortally wounded, and quickly recovers once thrown back in the water. Many times, however, the fisherman is obliged to kill the fish he intended to throw back because the hook has been swallowed more than mouth deep. Simply snipping the line is not satisfactory, first because the hook embedded internally in the fish will usually kill it, and second because an expensive hook and lure is lost.
The solution is to prevent the fish from being able to swallow the hook more than mouth deep. The prior art has not adequately recognized or solved this problem, and accordingly does not teach any structure which is simultaneously effective, inexpensive and easy to manufacture and use. U.S. Pat. No. 4,987,696 to Cook discloses a fish hook having one or more wing members fastened crosswise to the hook shank, the wing or wings disposed at an angle between 30.degree. and 60.degree. from the shank. The purpose of the wing is to create a hooking moment when the line is pulled to rotate the barb of the hook up and into the mouth of the fish. The wing is also briefly described as decreasing the probability of the hook being swallowed by a fish; however, the wing is inadequate with respect to size, placement and ease of construction to provide a satisfactory solution to the hook swallowing problem.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,022,177 to Gibson discloses a one-piece wire harness for converting regular fishing lures into spinner bait lures. An upper portion of the wire harness is bent at approximately right angles to the vertical shank of the harness to support a spinner.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,473,966 to Neal discloses a combination bobber and fish hook remover in which a short cross bar is fastened on a vertical hollow rod to provide a support about which the fish line is tied.
There are also many prior art devices known as "weedless" hooks or lures, usually providing a bar or ground member attached to the shank of the fish hook and extending downwardly at an angle to cover the point of the hook. These weed guards do not function adequately to prevent the swallowing of the hook by a fish more than mouth deep, largely due to their position on the hook itself, the angle at which they are set, and their direction of yield or give.
Prior art fish hook/lure harnesses also lack modularity, in that they are incapable of suitably handling a wide range of hook sizes, often limit the fisherman to only one hook or lure at a time, do not permit reconfiguration of the hook or lure, and are not easily disassembled and reassembled.